Nearly a third of the Royal Navy fleet is positioned off the
coast of France today for a major exercise with the French military.
Six British ships and 3,000 UK military personnel are taking part in
Exercise Corsican Lion to develop the joint naval force being set up by
Britain and France.
The two countries are creating a ready-made task group which can react at short notice to events anywhere in the world. Undated Ministry of Defence handout picture of HMS Bulwark Credit: Royal Navy/PA
The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, and the Chief of the Defence
Staff, General Sir David Richards, are flying to the Mediterranean to
inspect the force.
Mr Hammond says the joint Task Group will "ensure that the Royal Navy
can respond to, and deal with, emerging events around the world."
He stresses the joint operation with "our French allies is in both our interests."
The joint operation is the result of a major agreement signed in 2010
as both countries come to terms with their own tight defence budgets
which will limit what each can achieve militarily on its own. The French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle Credit: Chris Young/ PA
The Royal Navy, currently operating without an aircraft carrier, has sailors on board the French carrier Charles de Gaulle.
Britain will not have a carrier in its fleet until it takes delivery
of the Queen Elizabeth, currently under construction in Scotland.
She will not start sea trials until 2017 and won't become operational before 2020.
The Ministry of Defence is building a second aircraft carrier, the
Prince of Wales, but the Government will not decide until 2015 whether
it will be sold, mothballed or put to work.
Exercise Corsican Lion is being led by the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Bulwark.
Reporters travelling with the Defence Secretary have been told there
is "no time" to film him when he visits the French aircraft carrier. A hull section of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers at BAE Systems in Portsmouth earlier this month Credit: Chris Ison/PA
But the exercise is a major advance for Anglo-French relations since
the Battle of Waterloo - when the British defeated Napolean in 1815.
And Royal Navy sources also admit many in the French Navy have not
forgotten a decision by Winston Churchill in 1940 to sink the French
fleet off the Algerian coast to prevent it falling into Nazi hands. More
than 1200 French personnel were killed.
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